


A Working Relationship

by Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Badass Leia, Episode IV AU, F/M, Sinkholes, Working together reluctantly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-09-05 04:21:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16803532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome/pseuds/Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome
Summary: In an AU where Leia escapes the attack on Tantive IV and goes after the droids herself, she also hires Boba Fett for his assistance in tracking them down across the barren sands of Tatooine. Sparks fly as much as the sand does.





	A Working Relationship

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tiend](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiend/gifts).



All of a princess’s clothes were made for a specific reason in mind. Some for beauty and tradition, others for ease of movement on the Senate floor. The white dress she currently wore, had been wearing for days now, was made to hide a blaster pistol in a pocket, and to give her an air of gravitas that she didn’t necessarily feel she needed.

Not when she had a blaster in her hand, after all.

What the white dress  _ hadn’t _ been made for was the arid, bitter winds of Tatooine, with the sand stinging her face, and the hem of the dress tangling in rocks and scrubby little plants.

Which was why she fell, of course.  She didn’t fall because she was exhausted from a last minute escape from the Tantive IV, or because she was grieving the loss of many of the Alliance’s finest troops. An d she most certainly did not pitch forward into the sand simply because she’d tripped over her feet when the bounty hunter accompanying her had taken off his helmet.

To reveal a very, very handsome face.

“Princess?” Boba Fett asked. His accent was a little stronger without the helmet. He’d been complaining of a broken visor screen the whole time they’d trooped through the desert, looking for the droids. It had been her father’s idea, when she’d managed to send a message to Bail from the smokey cantina she’d gotten herself to. Bail had insisted a bounty hunter would be loyal only to credits, and keep Leia safe as the imperial troops descended on the planet. 

She’d doubted that, but hired him with the money she’d received from pawning her belt.

Now, after two skirmishes, one with sand people and one with stormtroopers, both of them were a little worse for wear… but had to be close to R2D2. She knew it. 

“I’m fine!” Leia pushed herself to her feet, brushing sand off her dress. “Let’s keep going.”

“I think you should rest.”

“I think you should be quiet, unless spoken to.” She looked up at him, her hands on her hips. “And put that helmet back on.”

She was not at all prepared for the way his eyes lit up when a smirk crossed his face. “Why?” he drawled. “Something wrong with my face?”

No. Not at all. Which was, of course, the very wrong thing about it all. She was a leader of the rebellion, a princess of Alderaan. She did not have the time to have a stupid little crush on some backwater bounty hunter by the name of Boba Fett.

But it was hard to remember any of that when he looked at her like he was right now. Like he could see right through that stars-damned white dress, and like he enjoyed very much what he was seeing.

She flushed, because she was guilty of doing the same thing as they’d journeyed. Imagining what lay underneath the armor, picturing him removing it, piece by piece, to reveal the rugged, powerful man she was getting to be familiar with.

The man who was a bounty hunter, and not at all nice. Nothing like the men she’d spent time with back home. Nothing like a man she was supposed to want to kiss.

But he was the same man who had thought nothing of sniping three stormtroopers, when they’d turned to fire on Leia. The same man she now found herself a little in debt to, because she knew she hadn’t paid enough to buy outright rebellion from him.

“Let’s keep walking. We’re almost there.”

She took a step forward. Another. They were so close to getting the droids back from the Jawas, so close to the plans that would take down the Empire.

But she was also so close to her working arrangement with Boba Fett coming to an end. She found that last fact bothered her a good deal more than it should have. She wondered if she could argue with him until she got him to join the Rebellion, if he was loyal to anything beyond credits. Would there be a way to appeal to him? An angle to take to get him to side with her?

A moment later, the sandy ground beneath her feet gave way. Screams tore from her as she was falling, falling, deep into the sinkhole. Sand fell into her eyes, blurring her vision. Damn it all. A sinkhole. This was how she was going to die? Really? After surviving so much, including an Imperial boarding party, she was really going to be felled by some fierfeking sand? No. NO! She struggled, fighting her way back upward, trying to swim in the sand that was tugging her deeper and deeper down. She managed to push her hand up, through the surface, and felt fresh air on her skin. But there was nothing to grab, and something far stronger than sand had just wrapped around her ankle...

Suddenly, there was the sharp smell of fuel igniting, the roar of something like an engine. Then, a strong hand wrapped around her wrist, pulling her up. She looked up, to see Fett himself, jetpack ignited, hovering above the treacherous sand.  His other arm wrapped around her waist, and with one final tug, he pulled her free.

The flight was short, and utterly uncomfortable, though she’d later tell her friends it was the most romantic thing in all the worlds. BUt there was simply no good place to cling to on his armored body, and without his helmet, he was flying blind.   
They crash landed into a dune, near but not too near the sinkhole.

Leia touched his cheek, wanting to feel his warm skin. To know he was real. “Thank you,” she whispered.

“Try a little harder to stay alive, yeah?” he raised one eyebrow. “You’re not making my job easy, you know.”

“I’m not an easy person to work with,” she retorted. “Everyone knows that.”

“Oh?” He hadn’t pulled away. Instead, his gloved hand rested on top of her own, keeping her hand trapped there. Her thumb stroked his cheekbone, and she was rewarded with the way his eyelids fluttered in a moment’s bliss. “Good thing I like a challenge, then.”

“I am not a challenge!” she retorted, pulling her hand away. “I’ll have you know that I--”

She never did finish that sentence. Instead, her lips found something even better than an argument, when he kissed her, hard. Words melted away as they pressed together, the howling winds of Tatooine roaring above them. Leia kissed him with all her fury, all her passion, and found it returned in equal measure. 

Maybe hiring Boba Fett hadn’t been the worst idea after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading, and feel free to comment!


End file.
